Have You Seen Ally Queen? (23 page)

There’s our house, up on the dunes, overlooking the beach. Scrub reaches around it like a massive scratchy doona. I wonder if Dad’s at home, and almost feel kind of
nervous
walking up the path. I think it’s the longest time I’ve ever been away from home. Well, away from Dad and Mum and Jerry. Five days. Jeez. Big deal. And so much has changed.

Dad says today’s the ultimate beach morning. When we step out the front door, bags in our hands and Dad with a brolly over his shoulder, everything is cracklingly still. You’d hear a leaf shift, if it could. Under our thongs, the limestone path is louder than ever. Dad has the papers with him, and the esky bag full of watermelon and cold drinks. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my first whole day back. I float on my back beyond the waves, and let the water fill my ears. Jerry builds a medieval castle system at the wet edge of the sand. Dad’s just a couple of legs under the brolly.

Salty and dry, and with the wind just darkening the waves, we head for home. Halfway up the path, I hear Jerry shout.

‘Mum!’ he calls out, pointing over to our place.

I look up and see a weirdly familiar figure on the verandah, waving. My heart tries some kind of high
jump while I stand there, trying to get my head around this.

Jerry’s feet spray up limestone in his scrabble to get home as fast as he can. I watch him sprint all the way to the door.

From up on the verandah, Mum watches us walk home. I see Jerry fling himself onto her and hear them talking. I hang back. It’s been a while. I can’t believe it, and I’m glad, so glad. But it’s been a while, for all of us.

Dad stands back from the front door and it’s just him and me for a moment. He looks at me and catches my hand, holds it. He goes to say something but struggles. I look at the sand coating my feet. ‘Ladies first,’ he finally says.

Upstairs, I can hear Mum in the kitchen. As I reach the top of the stairs, I see three big mugs of Milo lined up on the counter, and Jerry already slurping from one. Mum catches my eye. She’s pale but smiling.

Apart from meeting Rel, the only good thing about this year is that it’s almost over, and thank Killer-Python
Christ
for that. I don’t care about
new,
just different, another, not the same, away, gone, outtahere! Any year would have to be just a little better than this one. You know how they have a dedication for each year, like Year of the Volunteer and Year of the Child? This year has been officially renamed the Year of the Shite. I’m amazed I’ve survived it.

Summer’s on! You can fairly smell it on the breeze. We don’t go back to school for another couple of months. God, am I gunna have to stock up on Killer Pythons to cope with a new school year. I’ve actually been considering buying the pre-packaged bags of pythons from the supermarket in Mandurah, just to save myself a trip to the deli every few days, but I’m not
convinced they’re the same. The pythons, I mean. The ones in the bags are slimier and glossier looking. The ones I buy from Mr Conner at the deli now are kind of dusted with flour or icing sugar or something, and that makes them a whole lot yummier. Plus, they’re fatter, they’re
juicier.
It took a while, though, for Mr Conner to get in a fresh box of KPs. I suffered those dry, crusty ones for what seemed an eternity before he
finally
ordered a box of soft, fresh ones. Then, in order to convince him that I’d be a regular python consumer, I set about eating my little heart out. It was magic. I got through that first box in a matter of days. Pythons are now a staple at the deli. They’re right at the front of the counter. And I like walking down there now, even if it is a fair hike.

So Mum’s back to kind-of-normal now after being post-traumatic for most of the year. She still has a few
odd
days, if you know what I mean, but at least we can put them in context now. If she’s at home and still smiling at us occasionally, then things are pretty damn good. I now know the real difference between being happy and being unhappy. I reckon it’s only when you’ve been really,
really
unhappy that you know what it means to be happy. I still can’t believe Mum left Jerry and me to cope on our own with Dad’s cooking, though.
Jasmine risotto, spag bol with
carrots
in the sauce, polony sandwiches for lunch—apart from the odd barbie, it was
bad.

She’s even more into the whole grow-your-ownvegies deal these days. She reckons if she knows what the vegies eat, she knows what
she’s
eating.
You arewhat you eat, Ally, they don’t say that for nothing, youknow.
God! I try not to get embarrassed, but it’s hard. What the vegies eat! She’s got enough spinach and rocket and cos lettuce sprouting that she takes a mixed bag of salad greens over to a friend of hers every week or so. She says otherwise it’ll go to waste and the worms will be the only ones getting fat.
You don’t getfat on lettuce, Mum,
I tried to explain, but she just said,
Maybe not, Ally, but worms do.
Whatever. What
ever,
Mum. I don’t argue with her anymore. What’s the point? So long as she doesn’t inflict too much of that hippie do-gooder stuff on me, I don’t care.

But guess who Mum’s new mate is?
Rel’s mum.
Yup. Talk about a small town! It’s cute, actually, seeing them having a cuppa together when Rel and I are hanging out, too. It’s a bit weird sometimes when I pass her on the limestone path—me coming home from Rel’s and her heading over there.

Jerry’s graduated from the beginners Dick Smith
chemistry set to the ‘Little Dick Chemist’s Kit’—can you believe that? The
Little Dick Chemist’s Kit?
How
sad!
The boy is never going to have a hope in hell of being normal as long as he gets his kicks out of stuff like that. The only normal thing he does is make himself burp, a skill he has recently mastered (like, wow), so he’s coming into my room a fair bit these days, burping some word or other and then running off. Like I’d chase him. I’m almost grateful, ‘cos it means there’s hope for him yet. And it means he’s over the farting stage, at least.

Dad’s great, still waxes up the mal on Saturday mornings—it gets him out of doing yoga with Mum, he said to us once, which made even Mum grin. Rel was out there one morning recently and paddled out the back with Dad! I nearly choked when he told me. Rel said that the old man wasn’t too bad, but that he dropped in on some kid from maths. I gave Dad
heaps
about it when Rel told me. He got all embarrassed, just remembering it, said it was an accident and he felt like a complete schmuck, knocking a kid off his board down at the local break. He reckons he didn’t see him until it was too late.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Dad, whatever. Whatever.

I’m cool this summer, I reckon. No more dramas,
thanks. I’m just gunna chill out, lay low, and see what happens. What else can you do in a place like this?

‘Ally, Rel’s on the phone for you,’ Mum calls downstairs to me. He still refuses even to call me on my mobile.

‘Okay!’ I yell, and take the stairs two at a time and face a
calm down
look from Dad when I get to the top. He’s reading the paper. Again. How many papers can you read in one day? And then watch the news on TV—on
two
different channels. Honestly, the guy’s got issues.

‘Sorry,’ I grin at Dad, and grab the receiver. ‘King Python?’ I ask.

‘It is He.’

‘And what are today’s events?’

‘I dunno, anything,’ he says. ‘I’m bored out of my enormous mind.’

‘You wish.’

‘You
do.’

‘I don’t need to.’

‘But of course,’ he says. ‘She of Brains-R-Us.’

‘And don’t be making that mistake again, thank you.’

‘So what do you wanna do?’

I think about it. I don’t want to go for another walk
in the bush or on the beach—I’m sick of walking—but there’s not a hell of a lot else to do around here. ‘I feel like going out,’ I say. ‘Into town. Shopping.’

Rel says, ‘I don’t have any money.’

‘Nor do I.’

‘Well, that’s a stroke of genius, then, isn’t it?’

‘No: you don’t have to
buy
anything when you go shopping. I don’t mean
spending.
I just mean, let’s go into Mandurah or something and hang out.’

‘So not shopping at all.’

I sigh. ‘Are you gunna be like this all day?’

‘Yep.’

‘Great. At least you’ll provide the entertainment.’

He lets that go for now, but I know he’ll get me back later on. ‘Meet me at the bus stop,’ he says.

‘Okeydoke. Twenty minutes, okay?’

‘Yup.’

And he hangs up.

I love that guy. Well, you know what I mean. I don’t
love
him. I do
not
love him. He’s just a legend.

Well, maybe I do love him, just a little bit.

Or even slightly more than that.

Mum is on the floor in a pair of Dad’s old shorts, with a yoga book next to her open at something called
Uttanasana.
There’s a picture of a person in a weird position that Mum’s trying to copy but she’s not even close. I pause in the doorway.

‘Alison,’ she groans, ‘come over here and help me, love.’

I try not to laugh. ‘Can’t you get up?’

Her face is beetroot. She’s sweating. ‘I can,’ she hisses, ‘but it would be a lot easier if you helped me.’

I grab her waist and pull gently. She comes up and then crumples to the floor.

‘That’s not how the guy in the book looks after he’s done it.’

She sets her mouth in a line that says,
I don’t recallasking for your feedback.

‘But Mum,’ I go on, ‘if you want to be a yogi, you’re going to have to be able to stand up after doing one of
those. And then do ten more.’

‘Yes, Ally, I’m aware of that. Would you like to try one?’

‘It’s not really my thing,’ I say, heading into the kitchen.

She lets me off the hook this time, but I think that’s because she’s still trying to catch her breath from the strain. She’s into all sorts of that stuff lately. I
pray
that Rel does not come over when she’s in the middle of some weird elastic body pose. She’s also been doing
taichi
with a woman in Mandurah. She goes there once a week—at five o’clock in the morning—for a session. Dad just runs his fingers over his forehead and says,
At least she’s not into religion.
If it weren’t for Dad, I’d be seriously concerned for the rest of us. But can you believe Mum, with this tai chi thing? I’m telling you, she’s getting worse.

I text Shel.
Can’t wait 2cu next weekend!

Instant reply:
Me neither. Can’t wait 2 c ur new world!

Day 1: am going 2 show u mulberry tree & seal spot ñand Rel (!). Day 2: eat Killer Pythons? xxx

‘What’s for dinner?’ I ask Mum.

‘Mushroom and spinach lasagne.’

I spin around. It is
not.

‘Your favourite, I believe.’

As if she needs to remind me! ‘I know—oh, yum.’

Now I really feel bad. What can I say? Mum is such a great cook. Like,
really
great, if she forgets about
foodmiles
and
moral consumerism
for a minute. That’s what she calls making sure you buy Australian products, or products that haven’t exploited little kids in China, or somewhere: moral consumerism.

As for the lasagne, I say, ‘Thanks, Mum,’ and really mean it. ‘D’you wanna juice?’

‘No, thanks,’ she says, getting up like she might have sprained something.

I look at her. ‘Maybe you could try some of that ... pilates ... or whatever you call it? I mean, if you’ve hurt yourself.’

She nods at me as though I’m being sarcastic. ‘I might just try lying down for a while.’

‘No, Mum—I mean it. It might help.’

‘Righto, Ally.’

God.